


hey sister, know the water's sweet but blood is thicker

by SerenLyall



Series: oh brother where art thou, oh sister draw near [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: A new hope, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Twin bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 04:33:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6105018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerenLyall/pseuds/SerenLyall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It would be many years before Luke understood what drew him to the cargo hold—to her. But even then, with his own sorrow and homesickness eating at his chest, he could not deny the Need that drew him inexorably to her side. The need to try to help her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hey sister, know the water's sweet but blood is thicker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [siths-sirenia](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=siths-sirenia).



> a missing scene from A New Hope

**ii. hey sister, know the water's sweet but blood is thicker**

It would be many years before Luke understood what drew him to the aft cargo hold that night.

The hour was late, the  _Falcon_ silent as she hurtled through hyperspace toward the base the princess still hadn’t named, the lights dimmed to soft yellow and softer shadow. Han and Chewie were both asleep, Han in the captain’s cabin, Chewie on the bunk beneath Luke’s in the crew cabin, and the hush of their slumber filled the  _Falcon_ ’s already silent corridors with a dazed, dusty sort of quiet.

It was a quiet that grated on Luke’s bones.

It had never been silent on Tatooine. Always the wind was blowing, or the sand was skirling about the eaves of the house, or the birds and lizards of the desert were singing to the moons. The air was always alive, always humming with life and silent breath, even in the heat of the midafternoon when the suns were at their zenith and all the world lay under the shackle of their scorching light. Not like in space, as Luke was quickly discovering, where the air was stale, recycled a hundred thousand times only to be recycled again. It felt like death—like metal, and silence, and darkness which reminded Luke of a tomb.

He ghosted through the halls, two blankets wrapped around his shoulders and trailing along the floor after him like an ancient wizard’s long cloak, listening to the hum of the  _Falcon_ ’s engines rumbling through the chilled air, feeling the mechanical thunder in the grates and hollow panels beneath his bare feet. He ached, both within and without, the hollow carved into his heart matching the burn in his muscles and the sting in his raw hands throb for throb. A thick lump sat heavy in his throat, making it difficult to breathe.

His third time circling the  _Falcon_ , Luke paused at the junction of corridors that led down to the cargo holds in the belly of the ship. Han had warned him early on not to snoop, and Luke had listened—if only because Ben had given him a  _Look_  after the pilot had left the room, warning him to obey the older man. But now, as he stood there and faced the dim darkness of the hallway curving downwards, clutching the blankets—one green and one blue—close about his shoulders, Luke could not deny the incessant pull of  _Need_ that tugged at his belly.

 _You’re dead now anyway,_  Luke thought bitterly at Ben’s memory.  _Maybe if you were still alive, you could have convinced me not to do this._  

Wrapping the blankets even tighter around his body, as if to ward off any retribution for his decision, Luke turned down the side corridor.

The hallway curved around the edge of the  _Falcon_ ’s outer hull, the gleaming metal floor—which Luke suspected likely hid more smuggling compartments, the likes of which they had hidden in when sneaking onto the Death Star—disappearing from sight as the corridor made a sharp turn. Rounding the bend, Luke came very suddenly upon a fork. The two branches were nearly identical, if mirrored, in both shape and the faintly glowing lights recessed into the sloping ceiling, shedding pale yellow light filled with dusky grey down each route. For a second he hesitated, eyeing both halls with curiosity—but then, again, the  _Need_ tugged at him, and he turned to the right. 

The way he’d chosen bent sharply right and dipped down further still, until Luke was sure that he was walking along the very lower hull of the  _Falcon_. Shelving compartments lined the walls, the lockpads on each blinking slow red light into the shadows, and Luke wondered distantly whether or not they were full—and if they were, what was in them. Before he could decide whether or not to stop and try to open one of the compartments to see, however, the corridor opened into a large, brightly lit room stacked with crates and sealed tubs.

The blast door, recessed into the inner wall, stood open, and Luke walked boldly into the cargo hold, looking around him as he entered. The labels on the crates and most of the tubs crammed against the paneled walls and stacked haphazardly across the smooth durasteel floors announced that they were filled with food, tools and parts for the ship, and other such necessities for long-distance space travel. Only a few could Luke not recognize.

“What are you doing down here?”

The voice startled Luke and he jumped, whirling around to face the speaker. It was not, as he had instinctively expected, Han. Instead, to his surprise—though it should not have surprised him, he realized a second later as his mind caught up with his body, and he fully processed both the voice and the words—he found himself facing the princess, who was sitting wedged between two crates shoved against the right-hand wall. Her legs were tucked up to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around her shins, and from the red marks on her forehead, Luke suspected she had been leaning her face against her knees.

He recognized it as the same position he naturally wanted to curl into whenever he wanted to cry.

“Oh,” Luke said, feeling very stupid and very flustered, at both the sight of the princess and the thought. “Sorry.”

The princess frowned—and then very abruptly stood, smoothing out invisible creases in her stained dress. “Sorry for what?” she asked briskly, stepping out from between the crates. “And you haven’t answered my first question,” she added.

“Uh...” Luke blushed, and felt even more stupid as he fumbled for an answer. “Sorry for disturbing you, I suppose,” he said after a few seconds of awkward silence. “And I was just exploring,” he told her. “I couldn’t sleep, and it was like I  _needed_ to come down here, for some reason...” He trailed off lamely.

“Hm,” the princess said. She eyed him for a moment, her dark eyes flashing in the bright floodlights mounted on the walls, as if she was appraising him and the truth of his statement—or maybe the nature of his intent. But she said nothing as at last she moved, stepping forward to sweep around him toward the door.

“Wait,” Luke said, turning as she circled him, and taking an aborted step toward her retreating back.

The princess hesitated, her step faltering as he called to her, and she halfway glanced over her shoulder. “What?” she asked, testy and tired. Somehow, Luke got the sense that she did not use that tone of voice often—at least, she hadn’t before. It was brittle, and raw, and so very, very close to breaking.

“Are you okay?” Luke asked with a sudden surge of confidence.

“I’m fine,” the princess said sharply. “Why wouldn’t I be?” She did not turn to look at Luke—but then, neither did she leave as Luke had more than half expected her to.

“I don’t know,” Luke said with a small shrug. “You look tired, and you don’t sound very good. And it’s just not normal for someone to flee from a room as soon as someone else walks into it.”

“I’m not fleeing,” the princess snapped.

“No?” Luke asked, surprising even himself with how soft his voice was as it came out of his mouth. “Then what are you doing?”

“I’m...” And then abruptly the princess whirled, her dark eyes flashing up to Luke’s. He was shocked to see them wide and over-bright. “I don’t  _run_ ,” she hissed at him, taking a savage step forward, fingers balling into fists at her sides. “I’m not a  _coward_.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Luke said hurriedly. “I just meant that...”

“What?” the princess asked, eyes narrowing dangerously.

Luke took a deep breath. “You look cold,” he said at last. He pulled the green blanket from around his shoulders and held it out. “Here,” he said. “Maybe this will help.”

“I’m not—” the princess began, before abruptly cutting herself off. “Thank you,” she said instead. Taking three quick steps forward, she took the proffered blanket. She did not, however, wrap it around her shoulders as Luke had; she just stood there for a long moment, the blanket in hand, watching Luke.

“Are you okay?” Luke asked again, even more gently than the first time.

And once again the princess surprised Luke. She shook her head, the motion slow and filled with something dark and dreadful that Luke couldn’t, and didn’t  _want_ ,to name. 

Then, without another word, the princess turned and left, still clutching the blanket Luke had given her.

Something was different now, though. Of that, Luke was somehow very certain.

It would be many long years before Leia told Luke that, after leaving him in the cargo hold, she had found a dark corner in the medbay and had cried—though she had not yet been able to shed tears, she would tell him, and her sobbing had been more dry heaves and panicked gasps than true weeping—into the blanket he had given her. 

It would be years even longer before she told him that his giving her the blanket was the first time someone had shown her kindness, simply for kindness’s sake, since before her capture—and that it was, in that moment, that she had first truly loved him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> part ii/viii
> 
> lyric credit to avicii


End file.
